The Wound in Our Soul (MT, Invitation Only)

by **Cynereth** » Thu Jul 11, 2019 2:38 pm

—THEWOUND—
✦INOURSOUL✦

Companion Roleplay:
I N D O M I T A B L E

— PROLOGUE —
THE CROWN of your ENDEAVOR

TO THE ESTEEMED DEPUTY MISS ISUZA KEES in Laeleath

BACUZEN-OSSET, KALAADA, CAENEN✣TUESDAY, 11^TH JULY, 2034✣6:30 PM CYT

MY DEAREST ACQUAINTANCE OF SEASONS LOST:

I suppose it fitting that my last hours should be spent composing this epistle to you: I have spent far too much time in personal reflection, and sought to reach out to you one final time before I pass from these long days to a season of undiscovered solitude. This morning, I was informed by the camp commandant that my final petition for leniency had been rejected by the state superintendent for political detainees. While I maintain the strength to do so, I thought it apropos to utilize the last of my parchment to clear the air between us, and to restore the tidings of affection and good humor that once marked our days together. The remuneration of my malfeasance to our new Dominion shall soon be complete, and the last vestige of the former things will have passed into memory. But I wish not that our former friendship be cast in with my trespasses; rather, I would seek to make restitution to you in the form of this billet, that the breach I wrought in your affinity towards me might be remedied.

The camp physician has prepared the ground for my departure in the last minute of the twenty-first hour this very evening. Truthfully, I find some solace in the date of my final departure, for the pain of this life has been too great to bear for some time now. My physical frailty has been partly compounded by my final season in this prison camp, but I also bear the scars of nearly nine decades of life. Time is the great foe of us all; the unvanquished conqueror that defeats even the brightest of souls. My soul has dimmed for some time, much as my sight has. Yet while I struggle to walk in these final hours, my heart brims with pride in the knowledge that my former friend shall survive me, to great honor and privilege.

My captors have dealt with me sternly, but fairly. They have lived up to the ideals of their cause, and have afforded me no special privileges because of my former rank. They also hold me in no ill-cast light, nor do they levy upon me any undue burden beyond that which my crimes warrant. I offer my personal gratitude to you and yours for your accommodation of my internment.

It is my hope that you will be pleased to know that I meet the last hours of my struggle with the quiet dignity you so admired. I have no regrets, short of leaving this world without getting to embrace my companion of old. You were but a child when I first met you; to see what you have become, even at the expense of my station and my liberty, it fills me with an absonant repletion that my fellow captives find repugnant. Though my heart should wish that you wert overcome in your past machinations, and that my station would have been reversed with you and yours, I still glory in the augustness of your eminent victories. I dare compare my hushed delight to that of a parent watching her distinguished progeny make good on the promise of their prodigious potential.

Oh, my dearest Isuza, you are but a fleeting memory now in the fading vision of a dying woman too frail to endure in a land of titans. I have lost count of the days since we last saw each other in a favorable light; it seems a lifetime ago now – perhaps it was. Though the fondness which you once favored me with has long-since dissipated like the last of the winter melt, know that my predilection for your companionship has never abated. I cherish the remembrance of better days, when the world made sense and our hearts burned with a zeal for Laeleath and the Faith. Even now, I steal away in secret to pray that Lady Rukka would rekindle your Conviction, even as your set about casting a new orthodoxy borne of humanist tenets and secular communion.

My dear, close personal friend, Ilyan Vironah succumbed to typhus on the 10^th of June. While I know that your affection for Ilyan was much diminished in the last days, I am honor-bound to inform you that the steward held no ill-will towards you for his incarceration, and in fact spoke highly of you, much as I do now. We both marveled at your capacity for leadership in the dark times, though your instruction came at the detriment of our cause. He loved you dearly, Isuza: were I your spiritual mother in the Court, our friend was most assuredly your spiritual father. And like a nurturing father, his great hope at the last was not to taste freedom, but to let you know that he was proud of you. I hope these words honor you, just as your accomplishments honored us.

I could never hope to understand why you chose the path you now walk. While I revel in your achievements, I would have rather not seen them come at the expense of our cause, and all that we had worked for. I would have rather us continued in the days of our former joy, exuding in boundless confidence, secure in the resoluteness of our station. Were I to have known how fickle our hold on power truly was, I might have diverged from the path myself. Such dreams are folly to an old war horse now, though. I suppose our choices reflect the hopes of our dreams. The dream of Cynereth as I once cherished is gone now. I pray that your vision endures for a might season longer. The Providence of our People shall depend on it.

Bless you, my friend. I know that my tidings ring hollow in the face of my treason; history is left to the care of the strong, and the weak and feeble must settle for the scraps. My story shall be told according to your narrative, but I trust that my memory may at least find a home in your remembrance. Even soured by our disconnect, it would lighten these last hours to know that you thought of me, as I was thinking of you.

The hour grows late, and the time for my departure nears. Soon, I will be prepared for the physician, who shall in his own course remedy the sickness that I brought to your Dominion. Know that I go to my death with no illusions of salvation, and no expectation of rehabilitation. I remain the prideful servant of Laeleath, and shall never compromise my belief in the sanctity of the office I once held, or of the government I was once entreated to serve. I obeyed my calling with the diligence of a seasoned warrior; the battle was ended, and the war was lost. But I shall suffer the death of the martyr, and more the glory for it.

Alas, this is my parting to you, dearest Isuza: remember your friends; those that abide, and those that have gone away. Remember the affection that I held for you, and remember that the honor of your friendship belonged solely to me and mine. You were the best of us, my friend, and it is in you now that we place our hope. Our story is ended, and yours is engaged. Live and thrive in glory and power, and never forget the tumultuous odyssey that brought you to this season of unending glory.

The crown of your endeavor is the music of life, and God is in the melodies.

I ABIDE AS YOUR FRIEND, THE TAHZEN OF THE CONCORDANCE.

YOUR MOST HUMBLE SERVANT,
Maralah Towin di vi Aelsara-Kanla du Tynlee

by **Cynereth** » Thu Jul 11, 2019 8:50 pm

TO THE CARE OF THE DEPUTY MINISTER, KEES, ISUZA
2215 HOURS - 11 JUL 2034 - DETENTION CAMP 551

CASE NO: 5913-A6-341X [Class A] / Towin, Maralah (89)

*********************************************************
N O T I C EO FP R I S O N E RT E R M I N A T I O N
*********************************************************

DEPUTY MINISTER KEES:

Prisoner 5913-A6-341X, Maralah Towin was euthanized per the order of Camp Commandant Azalenn Riel at
2159 Hours on 11 July. The prisoner was declared legally dead by the camp's attending physician, 
and the remains were incinerated in the crematorium.

The termination order was processed by the Political Affairs Bureau in Kalaada, and all remaining 
responsibilities to this case are remitted to your care.

Per the request of the condemned, the preceding testament was sent along with other affects. This case
is now considered CLOSED, and further inquiries should be directed to the regional section chief
of the Political Affairs Bureau, or the District Information Officer at Johli.


WITH MY COMPLIMENTS:
Dir. Caemin Laren, Aide-De-Camp to Commandant Riel

*********************************************************
<< OFFICIAL COMMUNIQUÉ OF THE DOMINION #51-A-29346 >>

GUL BERE, LAELEATH✣WEDNESDAY, 12^TH JULY, 2034✣8:20 AM CYT

Isuza read the message three times, searching the depths of her soul for any trace of emotion. No matter how hard she plumbed however, nothing was emerging. No sense of pity, no sense of accomplishment – not even the slightest ounce of remorse. Her old friend was dead, by her own order no less, and it hardly even registered to her. The price of her survival in the war had been her mortal soul, and it was a steep price to pay. The only thing that could assuage the emptiness was the coffee she always savored in the morning. There was nothing better in the morning that a good cup of ‘Joe’, though sex came close.

Crumpling the communication slip in her right hand, she pocketed the memorandum and returned to her vigil overlooking the ‘killing grounds’ at Gul Bere. It was far from the most elegant of set-ups: a prison work camp set along the banks of the River Gul near Bere Island – ergo, Gul Bere – had been established two years prior to process the enemy combatants that had refused to stop combatting. Most of the incarcerated learned to accept their reeducation after a few months of starvation rations and whippings, but a few malcontents wouldn’t let it rest until her sentries put jacketed rounds into their brainpans. Tying idiots to wooden stakes and shooting them was less classy and far messier than the euthanasia tables in the extermination camps. But then, noisy soldiers meant far less to the hierarchy than political prisoners.

That Maralah Towin had survived for this long as just such a political captive was fairly remarkable: she had been one of the great enemies of the state for some time, and her capture in Remirah had made living legends of the command team that raided her stronghold. Isuza had been less interested in the capture of her former protégé than she had been the recovery of critical intelligence to the war effort, something the inexperienced novice had failed to discard before her capture. Towin had bombarded her desk with letters asking for clemency for years, but clemency wasn’t in Isuza’s power to grant. Not to the living damned, at least.

Her mug was still quite warm to the touch; she blew on the liquid contained within, trying to cool it down. Without her caffeine, she would barely be able to function; sleep had eluded her for weeks – not a great surprise given the enormity of her workload. Even so, her superiors weren’t about to authorize medical leave for insomnia, and her authority wasn’t that secure as it was. It helped to keep up appearances around town, running official correspondence for the Ministry to and fro and serving as the appointed liaison for work camp affairs. All that was to say in so many words ‘the person that authorized prisoners to be shot.’

And so, here she was at Gul Bere. Prisoners were in need of being shot.

One by one, the soldiers emerged from the canvas tents dotting the large stone plaza down below in the ravine by the river itself. The muddy, fouled water meshed well with the dingy color of the weather-beaten cobblestone. Streaks of mud and other rancid excrement were all over the grounds thanks to the briskness in business lately. Each of the soldiers brandished rifles with shining bayonets, leading condemned prisoners nude to the place of their impending murder. Isuza marveled at how young the condemned looked, wondering if she’d ever been so innocent-looking. Her face was a mask of wrinkles and stress lines, far more than her years should have permitted. The flowing locks that once attracted fawning eyes had lost their color and much of their volume; the silver streaks in her short, bobbed hair attracted little attention these days. Her former figure was hidden somewhere beneath a body weathered by stress and time. She looked twenty years older than she actually was, and twenty years past what she was had been a damned sour price to pay for victory.

As the guards completed the process of tying up the prisoners to their spires, her personal adjutant and camp overseer emerged from the largest of the adjoining tents. She had never taken much of a liking to Elyden Fey, a competent but undistinguished ideologue that had earned her promotion through the ranks in the most honest of manners: kissing ass like the toady she was. Unfortunately, being her adjutant meant that Fey’s lips were firmly planted on her backside now, and kiss-ass politicians were no longer in Isuza’s typical diet. Even now, the naïve little brat waved like a complete imbecile before barking orders at her soldiers, her uniform spotless and unsullied with the blood of her foes. She was a late bloomer, someone that had jumped into the fray after most of the fighting was done. She was a nobody.

Someone like Elyden Fey would have succumbed early on in the War of Manumission. If she managed not to have herself blown off the battlefield in a rocket attack, she surely would’ve been throttled in a prison camp after getting herself caught via incompetence. Today, she was a young officer climbing the career ladder: ten years prior, she would’ve been machine gun fodder. Amazing how life could take weakness in one era and turn it into strength in another!

Finally, her coffee was simmering enough to be tolerable; Isuza took a quick sip before the soldiers finished lining up. She had made the mistake of taking a sip once while they were in the process of firing – never again. She’d burned the shit out of her chest and embarrassed herself in the same moment. No, her routine now was fairly straightforward: sip on coffee while they were presenting arms, then carefully palm it down to her side while the executioners took aim. She watched as her new routine played out as normal: the soldiers trained their rifles on the condemned, aiming for the heart.

Elyden raised her arm up, then flung it down as she barked the command. The sound of rifles popping was muted up on the hill, but the sight of heads involuntarily snapping back signified the success of their handiwork. No one cared, and no one felt anything. The bodies crumpled to the stone in unison, and the trees cared not. The river kept flowing, and the soldiers that were armed had the same dead, lifeless eyes as the corpses on the ground. Only Elyden stood out, an anomaly that didn’t belong on the field. The camp kept right on humming, as if nothing had even happened. Dead bodies decorated the killing grounds, but they might as well have been rocks left over from millions of years of erosion. They weren’t even people lying there; they were just numbers on a report that hadn’t been filed yet.

Having completed the macabre business of the morning, Fey had purposed to entreat with Kees overlooking the river encampment. As she trudged up the hill in her leather jackboots, the truncheon swinging from her hip made a gentle clack: the only noise in the stillness on the bluff. Down below, the soldiers had already started hauling bodies away from their spires, using tin buckets of murky river water to wash the cobblestone grounds of their sanguine stains. The wind was blowing out of the west, carrying the smell of fresh decay off towards the plains; when the wind blew from the north – a common occurrence in the summer months – the stench would have drenched the entire rise, sending her to find a more suitable spot to enjoy her morning coffee.

When Elyden reached earshot, she greeted her superior with the customary salute: “Hail the Victorious, Deputy Kees!”

“Hail the Victorious,” Isuza murmured, taking a sip from her mug. The sting of the fine roast was as biting to her tongue as the rising mercury was to her skin.

“Three more days!” Fey exclaimed rapturously, almost bounding in her cadence. She came to stand beside the Deputy, looking back down over the killing grounds. “Three more days, and the last of our political malcontents will be purged from our camps!”

“Three more days, and I’ll be out of a job,” was the pointed reply Elyden received. Kees gently sipped on her beverage, indifferent. “I suppose I should be thankful to be getting an early retirement. But I will miss being someone important.”

The young adjutant scoffed at such an absurd notion. “Deputy Kees, you’re renowned as one of the Heroes of Cynereth! They’ll be building statues of one day in the capital! You could never be unimportant to this country if you tried!”

Isuza raised the mug to her lips, but hesitated. Something about Elyden’s pep talk had struck a chord within her; yes, technically her service to the cause had ensured a healthy amount of political capital in the regime – a fact that she’d already exploited into some lucrative business opportunities. But considering the weight her name once carried in Laeleath, back in the days when her command could topple entire Clans overnight, her newfound measure of power was but a fraction of its former scope. The purview of her office was almost entirely restricted to the remanding of political prisoners to their reeducation centers, their work camps, or in the most extreme of cases, the extermination camps. A far cry from the near-total autonomy she once possessed, back when the world made sense.

Her adjutant started in again, trying to pitch her case. “Deputy, you are a dedicated public servant! This country owes you everything! Without you, corruption would have consumed our people and led to the desecration of our realm! Don’t you see? Your service will be honored forever!”

“We may be public servants now, Fey. But once, we were gods.”

Her adjutant stared at her blankly, too perplexed by the admission to know how to react. “Deputy?”

“The gods once walked the breadth of this land, but we killed them. The gods were cut, and now we must learn to walk without them.”

“I’m sorry,” Elyden remarked after a pause. “I’m not sure what to say, ma’am.”

“There’s nothing to say,” Isuza nodded, motioning with her coffee mug towards the killing grounds below. “The story rests in them. Their history is now our mythology, and our beliefs today will be our children’s civic religion tomorrow. Look fast, Fey: you are going to live forever.”

<< >>

— CHAPTER I —
THE CRIES of the DYING CHILDREN

by **Cynereth** » Tue Oct 08, 2019 7:57 am

－Ｔ　Ａ　Ｎ　Ｒ　Ｕ　Ｓ－
SUNDAY,15^T^HSEPTEMBER2019
0700HOURSCYNERETHTIME

The sound of distant artillery was providing a quasi-rhythmic beat for his footsteps on the wooden footboards tracing the layout of the field camp. The hard clay soil on the southern slopes of the Cauzen Range weren’t prone to becoming muddy bogs during the wet season, but nonetheless the engineers were careful to mark the rows of tents with oak wood planks for the benefit of the officers. It was a matter of prestige, a mark of respect for the officers in the command quarter of a field camp not to sully themselves by walking around in the dirt like the rest of the common rabble. Crixan Suva thought it to be a waste of time and resources, lying out the plank roads, but Rukka forbid any of the officers have their feathers ruffled out in the damned wilderness.

With each clack his boots made on the plank road, the Dralin of the Concordance drew closer to his destiny. For years, everything had been building up to this one seminal moment; a moment greater than all others. Finally, the long road of hardship would be fulfilled – the fruits of his labors, the result of suffering the season of travails would be realized. Today, he was going to order his troops into battle for the first time as the supreme commander of all military forces in Cynereth. No longer would he be bound to obey the orders of those above him; today, all that mattered was his judgment, his skill, his greatness. All of Heaven would be host to his glory this day, and the thundering trumpets of artillery fire would herald his ascension to high honor and prestige.

Revel in my glory, sons and daughters of the Concordance, alleluia...

The trip to Voxe Calla had not been an easy one, but there was no alternative; he had been on a junket to Arai when his old military order, the Saedeans had uncovered time-sensitive intelligence on one of the Concordance’s priority military targets, a rebel insurrectionist operating in Caenara named Eldris Maal. The Saedeans’ ENL scouts had good reason to believe that Maal was gathering weapons in the hamlet of Vicus, a small railroad junction of some two thousand people. The Colsil Voyd was eager to use the railways to move men and supplies around the southern provinces; Crixan meant to deprive the rebel faction of that advantage by razing Vicus to the ground and burning Maal out of his hole. If innocents had to die to achieve those ends? So be it; innocents lost now would be repaid ten-fold in the lives saved by ending this pointless insurrection once and for all.

The Dralin had hopped a transport out of Arai under the cover of darkness to Tanrus, then had been escorted via convoy down the southern plateau to their field camp in Voxe Calla. For so much damned effort, he was going to certainly extract additional penance from Maal if he took the bastard alive. In truth, there was very little chance of that happening; the artillery barrage that he was about to order was going to put an end to him long before his rangers could ever go in and scoop up the pieces. Still, the idea of having Maal’s head on a pike at Castle Valsia would be quite the prize, indeed. The rat bastard had been drumming up more and more local support for the CV ever since Laeleath authorized using their southern field camps as “proving grounds”.

Reality was a bit more complicated than that, naturally. The guns moving south were meant to be used as a show of force, the same tactic that Laeleath had been employing in Caenara and Illewei for more than a century. And for more than a century, the result of that show of force was the same: the hornets get stirred up, the military marches in to restore order, people chafe, rinse and repeat. This time, though, there was a wild card in the deck, and it was going to change the entire paradigm of the conflict: Maal had made a tactical error by killing Fievar Keenel, a low-level bureaucrat that was politically connected to a Malthudian Marshuul, Avedon Keenel — his brother. Though Crixan didn't know the Marshuul personally, he knew of his reputation, and of his connections: on this fiery day, Maal would rue the day he crossed such a powerful — and vengeful — Avastranese clan.

The Wound in Our Soul (MT, Invitation Only)

The Wound in Our Soul (MT, Invitation Only)

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